McSWEENEY'S INTERNET TENDENCY'S PATREON

A Guide to Existential Oils

We live in a desolate polluted place, and yet still we fight, fuck, shop, and consume. We are but mere worker ants, fumbling along with our burdensome anxieties, the crippling structures of our bleak and heartless social system carried upon our backs. All the while we stew in a slurry of chemicals, slathering them on and gobbling them up.

Thankfully, there are antidotes to the toxins that burrow in the corners of our lives.

For Cleaning

You’ve let little things slide and your home has become a mountain of filth, and that mucky molehill is now threatening to swallow you whole. But don’t fret because existential oils are a great holistic addition to your cleaning regimen. Place one drop of oil in tepid water and you’ll realize that cleaning is nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig. Your wretched existence is not enhanced by a gleaming tiled floor or the full metallic shine of a pristine sink. Indeed your life will be as it was, pointless, dull, and murky.

For Skin Protection

Onwards we march, oblivious to the blaring dread star that burns through the clouds and penetrates our skin. We languish in the heat, slowly getting scorched to death with each waking day. That unforgiving sun cares not for your 401k or the status of your lawn; its only goal is to mercilessly roast you from the outside in. But sure, fine, go ahead, use a couple of drops of existential oil to try and protect your skin. You know in your heart that it’s pointless, but at the very least your moist epidermis will eventually be soft and easy to chew for the first worms that stake claim on your lifeless corpse.

For Diffusing

You lie on a quilted blanket in your dimly lit apartment as the soothing bass of a Joy Division song hums through your veins. What is the point? Why exist? Is there an organization to the chaos, and if there is, to what purpose does it serve? These thoughts haunt you while filing through junk mail and watching dust particles rise up and dance in the twilight. Put a drop of existential oil in the old diffuser your ex left behind and inhale deeply while you ponder the ethics of ghosting or the implications of every smudge in the Hubble deep field image. The airborne particles won’t be enough to cut through the melancholy, but at least your place won’t smell like old pizza anymore.

For Exposing the Mockery of Friendship

So detached and adrift you’ve become with the knowledge that none of this matters, you’re unable to participate in the charade of a normal unawakened life. An existential oil rep sees your plight and welcomes you with loving arms into the soothing comfort of her downline. You now have a purpose and goal, and embark on a mission to awaken those souls around you. But alas, it seems like your pleas fell on deaf ears, as those on your friends list have ignored your offers. You are faced with the hard truth: by turning their backs on your small business, your friends expose themselves as mere players in this Matrix-like hologram of life. Thus, the wheels fall back into place. All that is certain is chaos and nothingness, and things like true friendship and existence mean nothing at all.